SWC Commemorates Centenary of the 'Tragic Week', a Pogrom in Buenos Aires

March 27, 2019

Buenos Aires, March 27, 2019

Between January 7 and 14, 1919, following a strong struggle of the workers for the recognition of their rights, a nationalist group from the Argentine elite, with the support of the police forces, took to the streets to unleash violence which resulted in approximately 1,200 deaths.

The attackers, identified the Communists with the Russians by the shadow of the Revolution and, understanding that many of the Jews came from Russia, went especially to the Jewish neighborhoods where they killed approximately 200 people, raped women and children and destroyed their shops. The Center commemorated this event with a round table at the Argentinian National Library, overflowing the capacity of the audience.

Photo L-R: Perina, Gelblung, Saenz Quesada, Berensztein

The historian María Sáenz Quesada referred to the historical context, the presence of xenophobia and identified the roots of hatred present later decades in which the Jew was identified as an enemy.

Political analyst Sergio Berensztein argued that history should never be considered linear. Just as an educated Germany gave birth to Nazism, in its origins, something else was expected from Argentina.

The Director of the General Archive, Emilio Perina, said that whenever the story referred to the Tragic Week, no one mentioned the killing of Jews and that what is denied and covered and not exorcised, returns to the surface. He also showed documentation that substantiated the claims that the Jewish community presented to President Yrigoyen about the victims.

Dr. Ariel Gelblung, Wiesenthal Center´s Representative for Latin America, who acted as moderator, concluded:"The Jews who arrived fleeing from Czarist Russia found themselves victims of a Pogrom in which they were identified with their victimizers. "

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).